The alien base mission will reduce panic in all countries by two, so it’s good to do it when you need the panic reduction. It’s a bit harder than some of the regular large ufo missions, though it’s also likely to be the first time you see psi using aliens. It’ll give you access to psi yourself, so that’s a good incentive to do it early
It’s very hard to avoid losing any countries on the higher difficulties. You can safely sacrifice countries on the continent with your main base though, since you won’t lose the continent bonus. It’s usually best to wait with launching satellites until the last few days of a month. That way you can use them in countries that are in danger of leaving. Sometimes it’s worth sacrificing a poor country so you can get a satellite in something better, though.
Any country that has a satellite at the start of a month is immune to abduction missions. So if you use a satellite on the 10th for example, you risk that country getting an abduction and then going to 5 panic by the end of the month. If you launch it at the end of the month, the abductions for that month will already be over so there’s no danger.
One little trick I learned before I started playing: the “urgent” storyline missions aren’t remotely urgent. They’re the opposite of urgent, in fact. Doing them advances the story to the next phase, which generally means tougher opponents. Focus attention on keeping everything in control for your current phase on the game, and only do the story missions once you’re confident you can deal with an advancement in the storyline.
I only realize now (4 months of play) that you get funding only from nations covered by satellites. And in particular, I receive no funding from the USA or Russia. Call me an idiot. :smack:
Are you sure? For example, as stated above, the first time you see psi opponents is with the base attack mission; I thought the general pattern was that after you advanced the story, the aliens amped up their power. I think I read that on this board somewhere, but I could be misremembering, or maybe the advice was wrong.
I recall reading that the opposition in the base mission is scaled to your equipment. If you are still using earth tech, you’ll face weaker opposition thsn if you have ladets and carapace armor.
On the other hand, I didn’t realize save scumming was possible, so what do I know?
Triggering the story missions too early can cause you to face certain enemies too soon. However, if you wait too long you’ll certainly be facing Cyberdisks and Mutons right in the base assault.
Completing the base attack is good anyway because of the panic reduction. Usually you want to juggle panic until you’re on the brink and then hit up the base defense. The late game is often a lot easier because abduction missions won’t happen in countries you have satellites over which means panic management is super easy.
Yes, I’m sure. The Sectoid Commanders and Ethereals are the only aliens that depend on the story missions, and they don’t show up as part of alien pods, just on the bridge. All other types depend on time. First month is only sectoids, second month is Thin men, Floaters, Chrysallids, third month has Mutons, fourth has Cyberdiscs, etc.
I just started a new game last night, and faced Thin men in the first month (I think it was on a UN mission, so that might mess things up). But other than that quibble, I appreciate the new information!
Regular aliens and thin men make me breathe a sigh of relief (now) whenever I see them in missions, as compared to other enemies, they’re the weakest I come across now.
The floaters aren’t too bad either.
I’m experiencing a lot of mutons on my missions now. One or two missions had at least 12 of them.
Most all missions have a muton berserker too. One nasty level that I couldn’t get by until I had all my best men for the job (and it wasn’t the alien base either) had both a berserker AND one of those cyberdiscs. They certainly pack the health on those things. That was the toughest fight yet.
One tip with the berserker, though, it will ALWAYS take a move after you shoot it (even if it’s not the end of your team’s turn), however it will always move toward whoever shot it…so it’s completely possible to have one surrounded yet never have it hit ANYONE as long as you keep firing on it with different people.
But the one I’m annoyed by the most, by far, are those chryssalids. Ugh. One level and nothing BUT those and it was also one of those “rescue as many people as you can” levels. It took forever and a day to eliminate how many there ended up being by the end. Lost a few guys on that one too, which sucked.
Lastly:
The last “new” alien I’ve encountered are the Sectoid Commanders, which can take over a person on your team for as long as it’s alive…
At first, I was like “Oh shit” when it did this, but I recently beat a level that had THREE of them and it wasn’t too bad. I find by powering through to them and killing them ASAP, they don’t ever get to do too much damage.
Not sure if there’s any more new enemies that I haven’t encountered yet in this game, but I’m thinking it’s likely. I haven’t yet encountered any “boss” type enemies unless you include the one in the spoiler above,…it seemed to be marketed, a bit, as a boss.
I’m at the part where I just finished researching the Hyperwave Beacon…first priority thing you research after you hit the alien base. I took my time in doing that research, though. I hadn’t known that priority things cause the storyline to advance. Thanks for letting me know.
Yeah, it’s easy street from now on. Some missions even include a giant robot that’s there to help you. As soon as you see it, rush all your guys near it, it has a healing aura.
XCOM Enemy Unknown is pretty great. Anyone who enjoys the game should consider picking up its expansion, Enemy Within. It adds more random maps, more aliens, and more storyline and council missions (there’s a couple extremely tense scenarios that I won’t spoil.)
Enemy Within adds a completely new human faction to the game, an Illuminati-esque organization called EXALT. This group will work behind the scenes to undermine your funding, and you can launch covert ops missions to locate their cells and destroy their base.
The expansion also adds a new resource called MELD to collect that you can use to augment your troops. The different MELD upgrade paths give you a lot of choices for how to improve your squad.
You can choose to alter your squaddies’ DNA, to give them new abilities like better vision, reflexes, regenerating health, and/or dermal thermoptic camouflage.
Or you can hack off your soldiers’ limbs and turn them into hulking cyborg troopers, with powerful heavy weapons, or a jetpack super jump, or a rocket power fist that can literally punch enemies through a wall. Sometime your Mech troopers quote lines from RoboCop.
You have a limited number of turns to collect the MELD canisters scattered around the missions, so you will have to balance a cautious approach with a more aggressive push to gather this resource. The pressure to collect a canister before the time limit really forces you out of your comfort zone and can get you into some hairy situations.
If you enjoy the base game, Enemy Within adds more of everything. You should be able to pick it up super cheap on Steam during the winter sale. Good hunting, Commander.
How cheap do you expect? Even more than EW, I’m interested in being able to play the Long War mod on EW, but I’m not sure I can spend too much, I’ve had a lot of outflows recently.
Probably 60%-80% off during the next sale. $10 plus or minus a few bucks seems about right. It was apparently on sale for $7.50 back in March.
Firaxis is releasing a new game, Civilization: Beyond Earth, about a month from now. They may hold a sale on their catalog of games in the build up, or to coincide with their new release.
This is just speculation on my part. You should also keep an eye on other digital distributors of PC games like the Humble Store, Green Man Gaming, and Gamersgate, for discount pricing. These sites typically send you a game key that you can activate through the Steam service. (Be careful to check the fine print to check what you are getting.) The new XCOM is a Steamworks title, so any game key that you purchase will work with your base game on Steam.
Yep, I already plan to get Enemy Within next month.
That Long War mod sounds good too, albeit wayyyy harder and more challenging than anything I’ve faced yet.
From what I’ve seen of Beaglerush playing it, the early part of Long War actually seems somewhat easier than the early part of vanilla at the same difficulty level(Impossible ) Apparently, LW gets harder as you go on, instead of giving you a cliff to climb straight out of the gate, and then a casual amble to the finish afterwards. Sounds like a more sensible difficulty curve to me, but what do I know.
I have XCom but didn’t play it yet. Are the DLCs an important part of the gameplay? For example, do they fix huge problems or add very important gameplay components?
I’m convinced.
) Apparently, LW gets harder as you go on, instead of giving you a cliff to climb straight out of the gate, and then a casual amble to the finish afterwards. Sounds like a more sensible difficulty curve to me, but what do I know.